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Google's Alphabet and GSK Forge $715 Million Bioelectronic Firm To Fight Diseases Without Meds (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Google parent Alphabet's life sciences unit are creating a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a novel field of medicine called bioelectronics. Verily Life Sciences -- known as Google's life sciences unit until last year -- and Britain's biggest drugmaker will together contribute 540 million pounds ($715 million) over seven years to Galvani Bioelectronics, they said on Monday. The new company, owned 55 percent by GSK and 45 percent by Verily, will be based at GSK's Stevenage research center north of London, with a second research hub in South San Francisco. Galvani will develop miniaturized, implantable devices that can modify electrical nerve signals. The aim is to modulate irregular or altered impulses that occur in many illnesses. GSK believes chronic conditions such as diabetes, arthritis and asthma could be treated using these tiny devices, which consist of a electronic collar that wraps around nerves. Kris Famm, GSK's head of bioelectronics research and president of Galvani, said the first bioelectronic medicines using these implants to stimulate nerves could be submitted for regulatory approval by around 2023. GSK first unveiled its ambitions in bioelectronics in a paper in the journal Nature three years ago and believes it is ahead of Big Pharma rivals in developing medicines that use electrical impulses rather than traditional chemicals or proteins.
The first thing that came to mind was, there will be some sort of external control by GSK. If you don't pay some sort of subscription to keep the device managing your nerves, would they turn off the device so you have your old symptoms back?
I don't care if GSK and Google are behind it, it just sounds like wishful thinking and quackery to me. Reminds me of the bogus medical devices that you find in old snake-oil museums.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Each and EVERY time I see one of these feel-good stories about the google I just remember that their basic business model is to rape my personal information for THEIR profit. Any "free" service they offer is just a pittance on their profits from abusing my privacy.
There are alternatives, but if any business with an alternative economic model became an actual threat, you can be certain that EVERY company like the google that is firmly committed to abusing YOUR privacy would combine their resources to crush it into the dust. Eyeballs for ads is the GAWD.
Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier is a good discussion of the topic, though I think he's too kind of Amazon. I can say that even though I haven't finished the book because it is impossible to say enough bad things about Amazon. The google is still #2 or #2.5...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Okay, admittedly I'm not a doctor, so can someone answer a quick question for me?
With what conceivable mechanism would electrical stimulation of nerves help with the management of chronic diabetes?
A couple companies are dipping their toes into the Vagus Nerve Stimulation market, with it potentially curing a number of auto-immune disorders (RH, UC, Crohn's), epilepsy, etc.
The fun part is you can already do the treatment without electrical stimulation, but it may be better to have clear testable scenarios.
The Paradise Game by Brian Stableford - A Hooded Swan novel - book 4.
Scientist 1: (stares at patient on floor)
Scientist 1: Well that didn't work.
Scientist 2: *sniff* You smell something?